Reviews

Lenovo's Yoga Book is really great at being a tablet. As far as playing games and watching movies goes, I was as comfortable using the Yoga Book as I am with my iPad Air 2.

As far as productivity goes, this device wasn't for me. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's not for anyone. My version of productivity involves a keyboard (I type a lot, if you haven't guessed), while for others, it might involve switching between a keyboard and pen input, and for those people, the Yoga Book is nearly perfect.

Ultimately, Lenovo's Yoga Book is a truly innovative device, offering a number of features that aren't seen anywhere else. It is, of course, a first-generation product, and if Lenovo stays the course, the second-generation model will be a real winner.

I'd say that it's worth buying, as long as you know what you're getting. It's an excellent consumption tablet, and it's also fantastic for taking notes and drawing, as well as a bit of light typing.

If you plan on checking out AV Linux, keep in mind that the live session ISO (which you must run in order to install or even load) requires a user name and a password to log in. You will find these necessities hidden in the ISO file name.

For the 64-bit version, the user name is isotester. The password is avl64. The 32-bit version is similar. Use isotester with avl32. For security reasons, you can not access root accounts on the LiveISO.

Q4OS is fairly straight forward to get to grips with and it runs like a dream.

When I tried it last year it was on a much older machine and really worked well. On this machine it performs magnificently.

The Windows look and feel might not be to everybody's taste especially the use of "My Documents" and "My Pictures" etc but you can easily rename them.

The desktop environment is Trinity and it lacks certain features such as window snapping.

I haven't tried Q4OS out with my NAS drive or printer and other hardware yet but I did last time around and it had no issues so I suspect it will be the same this time. I will update you in the next blog post about this. I will also update you as to whether Steam works or not.

As with last time around I can't really fault Q4OS on anything. Well I suppoes there are a couple of things that could be improved such as dual booting and the network manager should be installed by default as the one that comes with Q4OS is a bit inconsistent.

After just a couple of hours effort I had Q4OS installed with every application I need including PyCharm. I am now able to listen to music, watch films, surf the web, write software, edit documents, read and send mail, use DropBox, use Skype and play games.

Q4OS also comes with WINE which is useful for running Windows software.

Laptops preloaded with Linux aren't as rare as they used to be. In fact, big name hardware companies like Dell have whole lines of laptops that ship with Ubuntu installed, and if you want to stretch things a bit you could argue that a Chromebook is a kind of Linux machine (though it takes a bit of tinkering to get actual Linux installed). Still, there's no question the Linux user of today has a wealth of options compared with the dark ages of just a few years ago when "I use Linux" was code for "I spend all my time looking for hardware drivers."

OnePlus started its existence by hyping up the Android community to a completely irresponsible degree in advance of the release of the OnePlus One. Lucky for them the OPO was a pretty good phone. However, the breakdown of OnePlus' relationship with Cyanogen Inc. made the OnePlus 2 a less appealing device. It was lacking in a few hardware areas and the software was very barebones. The OnePlus 3 was a clear improvement, but just a few months later OnePlus has given it the boot in favor of the OnePlus 3T.

As the name implies, this phone is very similar to the OnePlus 3. In fact, the OnePlus 3T has the same chassis as the OP3 and shares most of the same specs. The big additions here are the Snapdragon 821 (up from 820) and 3400mAh battery (previously 3000mAh). With the spec bump also comes a price bump—the OnePlus 3T starts at $440 instead of $400. I don't know that the additions are going to change the experience, but the OnePlus 3T is still a good deal. OnePlus knows its niche.

Endless OS is a Linux-based operating system which seeks to provide a streamlined, simplified user experience. A large part of the user experience is provided by a custom desktop environment (EOS Shell) which is a fork of GNOME 3.8. The distribution is available in two editions, a 1.5GB Basic edition and a larger (approximately 13GB) Full edition. The Basic edition offers a small number of applications and is suitable for most situations where the user has an Internet connection. The Full edition ships with a large collection of software and is therefore more suited to off-line installations.

The Endless OS website mentions that support for audio formats, such as OGG and MP3, are built into the operating system, but most video formats are not supported. Video codecs and Netflix support are available for purchase through the Endless on-line store.

So, there you have it for this in-depth look at the OnePlus 3T review! If you already have the OnePlus 3, the 3T isn’t compelling enough to justify an upgrade. The improvements are nice, but the overall experience isn’t significantly different between the two, and if software updates are a concern, the good news is that both devices will receive them at the same time.

On the other hand, those who have been waiting to see what Google had to offer with their smartphones and were holding off on buying the OnePlus 3 will certainly be elated. Given the upgrades, the $40 and $80 difference in price from the OnePlus 3 is completely understandable, and still undercuts a lot of other flagships. What you get for the money does make the OnePlus 3T one of the best deals you can get for an Android flagship, and is a smart move by the company.

Let us draw the verdict. It's a strange one. Oddly, this is probably the best Kubuntu that I've tested in a long time. Sadly, that's like saying losing one finger in a freak chainsaw accident is better than losing two fingers. Not the best measure stick. Not something to be proud of. There are many, many problems in Yakkety Yak Plasma, including but not limited to the application stack, stability, performance, package management, and the ability to customize. That's not a happy list.

Brave face on, we also have a lot of goodies to focus on. A very decent - and FIRST for Plasma - smartphone support stack and multimedia playback as they should be. Lots of old bugs have been fixed. If only we had Samba printing support out of the box, and the network card driver was given a little bit of love, this might be a reasonable distro.

Kubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak is nothing to be proud of, but it is an okay Plasma release that has redeemed a whole generation of failed distributions in the past year or so. It's funny how it's gone from being my favorite to a pariah, and now it's slowly recovering. Such a waste of effort. And why? There was really no need for this whole regression saga. Anyhow, the road to success is still a long and perilous one. It will take a lot more before Kubuntu becomes a recommended household item again. But at the very least, 16.10 is showing a little of that promise. 7/10, if I'm being generous, more like 6/10, but you might want to give it a spin and see what gives. QED.

In the world of Linux distributions, users are often faced with the option of choosing an enterprise-grade distribution or a community distribution. With the openSUSE Leap approach, SUSE is attempting to merge the best of both the enterprise and community models into a new type of Linux distribution. In the pure community-first model the upstream open-source code is packaged in a distribution, which can then be further hardened to eventually produce an enterprise-grade Linux product. The open-source openSUSE Leap 42.2 Linux distribution became generally available on Nov. 16 and takes a different approach. Code from the SUSE Linux Enterprise Service Pack 2 release, which debuted on Nov. 8, is now in the freely available openSUSE Leap 42.2 update. As part of its enterprise community stability focus, openSUSE Leap benefits from the Linux 4.4 Long Term Support Kernel (LTS). SUSE expects to support openSUSE Leap releases for 36 months. The new release also includes the latest in open-source application packages with LibreOffice and Firefox as well as developer and graphics tools. This slide show eWEEK takes a look at some of the features in the new openSUSE 42.2 Linux operating system release.

There is no such thing as a perfect phone, regardless of how much we argue amongst ourselves. But there are definitely phones that are better than others. The OnePlus 3 is one of those. The compromises and cut corners are not as noticeable as in years past or when compared to other devices in this price bracket. Without a doubt, OnePlus struck a fantastic balance this year.

Whether we are talking hardware, software, or camera, it can hold its own with the big boys. Some might argue that it runs neck and neck with the ZTE Axon 7, and I don't disagree. At $399, it is very difficult to beat this phone, even this late into 2016. Since Nougat is promised by the end of the year on the stable channel, I have no qualms with giving this phone a high recommendation, even in late 2016. If you are on a tighter budget and want great bang for your buck, this is a phone you should consider... at least right now. You never know when a better phone will suddenly appear.

A few moments ago, renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman had the pleasure of announcing the general availability of the Linux kernel 4.8.13 and Linux kernel 4.4.37 LTS maintenance updates.
While many rolling GNU/Linux distributions have just received the Linux 4.8.12 kernel, it looks like Linux kernel 4.8.13 is now available with more improvements and bug fixes, but it's not a major milestone. According to the appended shortlog and the diff since last week's Linux 4.8.12 kernel release, a total of 46 files were changed, with 214 insertions and 95 deletions.

openSUSE's Douglas DeMaio reports on the latest Open Source and GNU/Linux technologies that landed in the repositories of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling operating system.

What Is A VPN Connection? Why To Use VPN?

We all have heard about VPN sometime. Most of us normal users of internet use it. To bypass the region based restrictions of services like Netflix or Youtube ( Yes, youtube has geo- restrictions too). In fact, VPN is actually mostly used for this purpose only. ​

The Libreboot C201 from Minifree is really really really ridiculously open source

Open source laptops – ones not running any commercial software whatsoever – have been the holy grail for free software fans for years. Now, with the introduction of libreboot, a truly open source boot firmware, the dream is close to fruition.
The $730 laptop is a bog standard piece of hardware but it contains only open source software. The OS, Debian, is completely open source and to avoid closed software the company has added an Atheros Wi-Fi dongle with open source drivers rather than use the built-in Wi-Fi chip.